| I'll chime in here, if you don't mind - I'm bipolar[1]. My health often deteriorates for short periods of time, perhaps a day or two, sometimes a week or so. In these situations there is often some trigger - high workload, poor sleep hygiene etc. My mood doesn't usually reach such an extreme that it causes any significant difficulty day to day. Episodes of illness that have a significant detrimental impact on day to day life seem to build up slowly. They start out like the episodes described above but they just keep on going until my mood is so extreme that day to day life becomes very difficult to deal with. My most recent episode of this nature was probably caused by the stress of a couple of deaths in the family, a daughter who doesn't want to sleep, a wife commuting across country to work, a high workload myself and (frustratingly) mental health services not providing care when I could see my health was deteriorating. It's been around 6 years between my last two episodes of that nature. Poor sleep hygiene is by far the biggest risk for me and it becomes a vicious cycle if I'm in a manic phase. Other than that, continued high levels of stress are a problem but only really if I'm dealing with multiple stressors. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder |
One thing that I find helps is a 'mental contract' with my partner.. if she thinks I'm getting elevated etc. then she has a contract which she can enforce and basically frog march me off to the doctors to get a strong sleeping pill for a week or whatever it'll take. Note, she's never had to use it, but having it has given both she and I peace of mind.
7 years and counting here.
And, while I was going to post this on a throwaway account, whatever, my own trigger for bipolar was a 10 day vipassana meditation course. There's audio etc. detailing why I went on the course, what it was like to be manic, sectioned under the mental health act, Depression (with a capital D), and getting better again... at : http://livingvipassana.blogspot.com
Now, 7 years clear, doing very well, and, while I'd not repeat the experience, I feel like I learned a heck of a lot about what humans can go through.
And trying to walk on water was fun ;) (didn't work)